Results tagged “tonyclark”

Last night, Mike Mussina took the hill against Cliff Lee. Lee started the season 10-1 but has been hit hard of late. Bernie Williams lead off with a double and quickly scored on a Derek Jeter single. In the second inning, the Yankees scored twice more on a Tony Clark home run. Mussina had a 30 cushion going into the second inning. That lead was reduced rather quickly with a Travis Hafner walk, a Casey Blake double and a Ronnie Belliard two RBI single.

It was a good and busy weekend at the Stadium for the Yankees. the Yankees managed to take three out of four games from Baltimore and increase their lead over the Red Sox to 9.5 games. The big trade that everyone wanted to see (Randy Johnson coming to the big Apple) did not happen, but Cashman was able to unload the inconsistent Jose Contreras for the steady Esteban Loaiza.

Rivera has now blown 3 saves in the season, Saturday against the Red Sox and the first one on May 11th against the Angels. While Rivera might seem "hittable" right now, there is no doubt that come the post-season, Rivera will be back to his normal form - lights out.

Contreras pitched well in Thursday's 7-1 win (see our post on that game here). On Friday it was newly named All-Star, Javier Vasquez, notching his 10th win of the year. Vasquez pitched five and two-thirds innings, struck out nine and held the Devil rays to three runs. Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada each had two hits to provide the offense for the Yanks.

The Yankees came into the series with a five and a half game lead over the Red Sox, by the first pitch on Thursday night, that lead was seven and a half games. It was a must win game for The Red Sox and their ace Pedro Martinez took the hill. Pedro picked up where he left off last year. After Gary Sheffield disrupted Pedro's focus by calling for time, Pedro plunked him with the baseball. After that, you could almost feel the air turn into the crisp October air this game deserved.

Despite three solo home runs by Johnny Damon in the 1st and 3rd and David Ortiz in the 6th, the Red Sox could not hold off the Yankees. Derek Lowe's sinker was done in by the poor play behind him (errors on Nomar Garciaparra and Kevin Millar), the power in the Yankee bats, and speed on the base paths.

It also seems like Captain Derek Jeter is back, going 3-4 last night and 7-15 for the series and boosting his average above the dreaded Mendoza Line from .190 to .211. Gothamist is going to treat this as a sign of Jeter's return to normal and a case reacting to media over-reaction on Monday.